Feed API v1

eBay has over a billion listings, providing you with a rich inventory that you can surface in your app or on your site. To get these items, you can use the Feed API to mirror an eBay category by downloading a GZIP file of the items in your chosen categories and specific marketplaces. You can then curate the items to fit your buyers and sync the item details with the live site—all offline—and then store the items in your database.

Feed API methods overview

The Feed API has the following methods:

• getAccess method—Returns the details of the application's feed file access configuration. Lists the marketplaces and categories for which the application can download feeds.
• getFeedType method—Returns a list of the feeds of a particular feed type that are available for download.
  Note: For bootstrap, item, snapshot and priority feeds, continue to use the Feed Beta API.
• getFeedTypes method—Returns a list of all the feeds available to download, listed by feed type. The response includes information on how frequently the feed is made available (DAILY, HOURLY, or WEEKLY—currently only DAILY and HOURLY are supported), supported feeds in each available type, each feed's supported marketplaces and each feed file's status (ACTIVE, PAUSED, DEPRECATED).
• downloadFile method—Returns a specified GZIP feed file, as specified in the request URI. The downloaded file has detailed information on each listing in the feed file. For more information about fields that may be included in a feed file, see Feed File Fields.
• getFile method—Returns a list of the metadata for a particular available download file. It includes details on the date of its feed, its file type, the frequency with which it is made available, its format, and its marketplace.
• getFiles—Returns a list of the feed files available to download. The file search can be filtered in the URI by feed type, feed pull frequency, L1 category, and how far back in time from the present the feed can be searched for.
  

Feed API integration

The basic steps to integrate with the Feed API and keep the items in sync with the eBay site are:

• Use getFeedTypes and getFeedType for details about a particular feed type

• Use getAccess to identify the feeds you can access

• Use getFiles and getFile for details about your available feeds

• Use downloadFile to obtain a GZIP file of a particular feed

Use getFeedTypes and getFeedType for details about a particular feed type

Use the getFeedTypes method to create a list of the feeds you can download. The list provides details about each feed type including how frequently it is made available, the marketplaces it supports (e.g., EBAY_US), and the authorization scopes needed for access (see Specifying OAuth scopes).

The getFeedTypes method also gives you each feed type's feedTypeId, which you will use with the getFeedType method once you have identified a specific feed type you wish to target.

The getFeedTypes method is a simple GET call using a URI call and no input payload:

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/feed_type

You can filter your search in the URI by providing a feed_scope parameter, so your returned list is not filled with unwanted feeds. You can also add a marketplace_ids parameter, to limit your returns to useful markeplaces. For example, the following call limits the responses to feed files whose feed scope is sell.inventory, and whose marketplace is the U.S.

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/feed_type?feed_scope=DAILY&marketplace_ids=EBAY_US

Use the getFeedType method when you do not need the complete list of feeds provided by the getFeedTypes method. The getFeedType method provides the same information as the getFeedTypes, but confines the search to a specific feed type, as provided in the URI.

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/feed_type/{feed_type_id}

The refined search results in a smaller file whose data is easier to read and manipulate programatically.

Use getAccess to identify the feeds you can access

When you submit an application for use with eBay, you will configure your application to allow access to a number of product categories within designated marketplaces (see Buy APIs Requirements). For instance, category 63, Comics, in the US market, EBAY_US. Before attempting to acquire a feed, it is useful to know which categories and marketplaces your application can access. The getAccess method gives you a list of those categories and marketplaces.

The getAccess method uses a simple URI call:

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/access

The response payload is a listing of the marketplaces and categories that pertain to your application, which can be used to focus a search using the getFeedType(s) and getFile(s) methods. The following is an example.

{
  "accesses": [
    {
      "feedType": "CURATED_ITEM_FEED",
      "constraints": [
        {
          "marketplaceId": "EBAY_FR",
          "categoryIds": [
          "7000",
          "8000",
          "777"
          ]
        },
       {
          "marketplaceId": "EBAY_US",
          "categoryIds": [
          "7",
          "10000",
          "6000"
          ]
     }
  ]
}

Use getFiles and getFile for details about your available feeds

A further way to granulate your data search is to use the getFiles and getFile methods.

It is possible to download a listing of all available feeds with a simple call getFiles call with no URI parameters.

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/file

However, the real power of the getFiles method is in its URI parameters, with which you can identify the exact file you need. You can use the feed type and feed scope you identified using the getFeedType method as containing the feed you want, then further focus your call with one or more category ids. Lastly, you can use the look_back parameter to further confine your search to determine how recently you feed to have been pulled.

For example you could limit your search to curated item feeds, in cookware (categoryid of 974) that have been made available in the two days (note that the look-back value's unit is always minutes, so two days is 2880 minutes).

GET https://api.ebay.com/buy/feed/v1/file?feed-type_id=CURATED_ITEM_FEED&category_ids=974&k_back=2880

Use downloadFile to obtain a GZIP file of a particular feed

The final step is to download the actual GZIP file, using the downloadFile method.

The Feed API methods require an eBay L1 (top-level) category ID. You can use the Taxonomy API to get the L1 and leaf (child) categories for a specific eBay marketplace. This enables you to download items from a specific category, map the eBay categories to your categories, and use the leaf categories to curate the items.

eBay’s product category tree consists of the following elements that can be used for qualitative matching:

• categoryTreeId - identifies the respective marketplace
• categoryTreeVersion - identifies the current version and determines if you’ll have to update the matching
• categoryId - a unique id that identifies a certain product category in the category hierarchy for a given marketplace
• categoryName - name of the respective category
• categoryTreeNodeLevel - category level within the complete category tree
• leafCategoryTreeNode - indicates if the respective category is located on the leaf level of the category tree

Retrieving a GZIP feed file

The TSV_GZIP feed files, which are binary, can be streamed in chunks. You must specify the size of each chunk in bytes using the request Range header.

The maximum number of bytes you can request is 200 MB, which is 209715200 bytes. When you specify the Range header, the content-range response header is returned showing rangeValueSpecified/totalSizeOfFile.

In the following example, the request Range header is set to retrieve the maximum number of bytes. The content-range response shows that the total size of the file is 1076602 bytes. This means the entire feed file was retrieved. The HTTP status code will be 200 OK.

Range bytes=0-209715200 

content-range 0-209715200/1076602 

If the size of the feed file is greater than 209715200 bytes, it will take multiple methods to retrieve the entire file. This is discussed in the next section.

How to retrieve a feed file using multiple calls

When retrieving a feed file in chunks, it is important to remember that the response is for a certain number of bytes not records. This means you must combine the chunks in the correct order. Also note that the chunks are binary not human readable. Because you are retrieving the file in pieces, if one method fails, you do not have to start over, you can just resubmit that call.

To retrieve a file that is 24MB (25165824 bytes), you would make 3 calls, which can be multi-threaded. Each call will return a gzip file containing the number of bytes specified by the Range request header. These will be binary files and must be put together in the correct order to get the entire feed file.

The table below shows the value of the Range request header, the HTTP response status, and the Content-range response header for each call. The HTTP status code for a successful call is always 206, even for the last call, because the response is never the entire file.

	Range Request Header	HTTP Response Status	Content-range response Header
First method	Range: bytes=0-10485760	206 (successful partial response)	0-10485760/25165824
Second method	Range: bytes=10485761-20971520	206 (successful partial response)	10485761-20971520/25165824
Third method	Range: bytes=20971521-31457280	206 (successful partial response)	20971521-31457280/25165824

If the Range value is invalid, a 416 HTTP status code is returned.